Given the rates of discrimination against transgender people and the flaws inherent in existing models of coexistence and allyship, I offer two main concepts to improve trans allyship. First, an ethic of responsible listening, which I explain as the process of opening up discursive spaces for transgender voices to be heard and responded to, based on an obligation to craft dialogue and to recognize trans people as people. In tandem with listening, then, is its result, ally labor: a category of complex practices without guarantee that seek to benefit transgender lives through a process of cis people leveraging their privilege to enable trans people to better navigate systems of oppression. I work through two theoretical questions to help solve the problems with existing theories of allyship: First, how might we move towards more affirming modes of coexistence that allow for difference with the goal of recognizing transgender people as equal members of society? And second, how might we practice allyship differently through listening to voices that have traditionally been marginalized? Working through these questions, I critique existing coexistence discourses and look toward modes of enacting a more productive discourse of allyship. In order to move beyond understandings of allyship that focus on identity categories, diversity and inclusion discourses, institutional response, and education, we can think of allyship differently, as an ethical orientation that facilitates those who are different from one another living and existing together. I forward a rhetoric of allyship through this dissertation, which I define as the discourses that circulate, modify, and extend the meanings of allies and ally labor, a rhetoric that works to understand how trans and cis people can better coexist together, given an intervention that focuses on trans vernacular voices in order to build and maintain this rhetoric. Intervening rhetorically allows a focus on the ways that discourses are malleable, contingent, and balance the universal and particular. In order to do so, I analyze a variety of texts: from popular media coverage of trans celebrities and fictional film and televisual representations to understand the ambivalence of visibility, to ally training manuals from colleges and universities across the United States to parse through the logics of ally training programs, to blogs, zines, and online magazines that craft definitions of solidarity from activists, ending with an qualitative analysis of interviews with 13 transgender people in order to better understand the unique and varied needs of trans people to craft a more holistic version of allyship.

Over the past few years, White Americans have been exposed to moments of "racial reckonings" –where America was forced to realize racial injustice—often caused by police killings of Black Americans. The summer of 2020 sparked various discussions about White allies and their role in racial justice. Previous scholarship has explored White racial awakenings, also referred to as turning points, when White allies transition into allyship; however, little is known about how these narratives affect White allies' definitions and practices of White allyship. By interviewing self-identifying White allies in college, I examine types of turning point narratives and how they correspond to understandings of ally definitions and practices. I argue that experiencing turning points led White allies to similar definitions and practices of White allyship depending on whether these points occurred in routine or non-routine White experiences. Turning points that arise from typical White experiences (exposure to diversity and education) led White allies to common allyship failures and complicity with racialized structures. Alternatively, turning points resulting from uncommon White experiences (exposure to protests and diverse families) led allies to definitions and practices representing non-complicity with racialized structures. / Master of Science / Over the past few years, White Americans have been exposed to moments of race related dialogues, often caused by police killings of Black Americans. The summer of 2020 sparked various discussions about White allies and their role in racial justice. Previous scholarship has explored White racial awakenings, also referred to as turning points, when White allies transition into allyship; however, little is known about how these narratives affect White allies' definitions and practice of White allyship. By interviewing self-identifying White allies in college, I examine types of turning points and how they correspond ally definitions and practices. I argue that experiencing turning points led White allies to similar definitions and practices of White allyship depending on whether these points occurred in routine or non-routine White experiences. Turning points that arise from typical White experiences (exposure to diversity and education) led White allies to common allyship failures. Alternatively, turning points resulting from uncommon White experiences (exposure to protests and diverse families) led allies to beneficial definitions and practices of allyship.

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The January 2021 edition of PMLA housed an entire cluster on "Indigenous Literatures and the Anthropocene," in which at least four of the eight non-Indigenous contributors directly addressed and supported a call for learning from and collaborating with Indigenous voices. The unanimity of the discussion dissolves somewhat drastically when considering exactly how this should be done, leading Melanie Taylor to voice one of the framing questions of the cluster: "If it is increasingly clear that not all members of Anthropos are equal drivers of the Anthropocene, and that not all are uniformly compromised by its havoc, how can we begin to manufacture a communal will to redress it?" (Taylor 10). My thesis presents as a potential solution collective environmental guilt—collective guilt responding to the specifically ecological violence enacted by settler-societies. William Kent Krueger's This Tender Land and Geraldine Brook's Caleb's Crossing, two works of settler-authored historical fiction, utilize collective environmental guilt to manufacture a communal will in their popular readerships by demonstrating and assigning guilt to the settler-collectives of their protagonists before guiding readers to embrace and center Indigenous ecologies as a potential path to mitigating that guilt and promoting positive environmental change. As settler-authored works, the texts offer an alternative mode of engagement with Indigenous knowledges for an audience traditionally outside of scholarly discourse's reach in a way that models a path for ally authorship supporting Indigenous environmental movements.

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Motivated by laws and regulations, moral grounds or the potential business advantages a more diverse workforce might bring, Diversity Management has become an ubiquitous part of organizational practices. Still, minorities are regularly exposed to social and structural discrimination at their workplaces. Allyship mayplay a vital role in changing this. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how allyship is perceived and practiced in a Swedish organization whose members have undergone training in allyship. In short, workplace allyship is the support and advocacy for the inclusion, belonging and career development of a socially disadvantaged or marginalized group. While more and more companies are including allyship into their Diversity Management practices, organizational research is yet to catch up. In addition, there is a very limited body of literature, independent of research field, which surveys allyship outside an American or native English-speaking context. Thus, claims that allyship is cross-cultural are so far founded in theory rather than empirical evidence. Constructed from a single case study of a Swedish subsidiary of an American company, this thesis presents an empirical model of the perceptions and practices of workplace allyship encompassing its motivators and demotivators, resulting behaviours, and challenges concerning its implementation. The model is based on interviews with both non-managers and managers but focuses its attention on disadvantaged group members and managers - two important perspectives that hitherto have received very limited attention in allyship research. The findings suggest that the way allyship is perceived and practiced is directly affected by both organizational enablers and barriers and the context of allyship. It is found that local endeavours must be made to contextualize centralized initiatives to a larger extent. In particular, educational efforts need to be more explicit about both the essence of and interrelation between allyship and systemic discrimination, since such connotations seem to be lost in translation when brought outside its original American historical, cultural and social context. If these are not made clear, there might be a risk that what is perceived as allyship helps preserve the very inequitable systems it conceptually is intended to disrupt. This insight motivates further research on the actual effects of workplace allyship. / Mångfaldsarbete (eng: diversity management) har tagit allt större plats i organisatoriska sammanhang och dess metoder. Arbetet har varit motiverat av lagar och förordningar, moraliska anledningar eller för att en diversifierad arbetsstyrka har potentialen att medföra stor affärsnytta. Trots denna satsning utsätts minoriteter för social och strukturell diskriminering på sina arbetsplatser. Allierade (eng: allies) kan ha en framträdande roll för förändra detta. Det huvudsakliga syftet med denna rapport är att utforska hur ‘allyship’ uppfattas och utövas på en svensk organisation, där dess anställda har fått genomgå en utbildning om ‘allyship’. ‘Allyship’ kan kort definieras som förespråkandet av både den sociala- och karriärsrelaterade inkluderingen av en social missgynnad eller marginaliserad grupp. Samtidigt som allt fler företag och organisationer arbetar med just ‘allyship’ så har inte forskningen inom organisationsteorier kommit ikapp. Det är väldigt begränsat med litteratur kring detta ämne som grundar sig utanför USA, eller ett huvudsakligen engelsktalande land. Det påstående som återfinns inom forskningslitteraturen, att ‘allyship’ är tvärkulturellt är därmed främst baserat på teori med få empiriska bevisningar. Utifrån en fallstudie på ett svenskt filial av ett amerikanskt bolag, presenterar denna uppsats en empirisk modell för ‘allyship’ på arbetsplatsen (eng: workplace allyship). Modellen innefattar faktorer som motiverar respektive avskräcker, resulterande insatser och de utmaningar som uppstår när ‘allyship’ ska implementeras. Denna modell är baserad på genomförda intervjuer med både chefer och anställda. Fokuset har lagts på missgynnade gruppmedlemmar (eng: disadvantaged group members) och chefer. Detta är då dessa perspektiv har hittills fått begränsad plats i forskningen om ‘allyship’. Resultaten talar för att sättet ‘allyship’ uppfattas och utövas på beror starkt av organisatoriska möjliggörare och barriärer, samt den kontexten som finns. Detta innebär att det krävs lokala ansträngningar på filialen för att kontextualisera centraliserade initiativ i större utsträckning. Särskilt viktigt är det att utbildningarna och liknande insatser om ‘allyship’ blir tydligare eftersom dess innebörd förefaller sig försvinna när konceptet tas ur det amerikanska sammanhang det härstammar ifrån. Om betydelsen inte klargörs finns det en risk att uppfattningen om ‘allyship’ bidrar till att bibehålla den systematiska diskrimineringen konceptet finns till för att bekämpa. Denna insikt ligger som grund till vidare forskning om ‘allyship’ på arbetsplatsen.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) researchers and organizations recognize that a large gender and racial disparity exists in these fields. However, individuals with intersectional identities (i.e., Black women) have unique experiences of bias that preclude them from entering STEM careers and feeling a sense of belonging. As such, featuring an employee that demonstrates allyship for Black women on an organization’s website can be a useful identity-safe cue to signal that a Black woman’s identity will be valued and promote the recruitment of Black women in STEM organizations. Yet, research indicates that Black women who are high in stigma consciousness (i.e., sensitive to potential discrimination based on their identity) do not trust or believe a White woman ally presented in a written profile cares about helping Black women. The current study found that presenting an ally in a video profile mitigated these negative effects of stigma consciousness, and increased Black women’s anticipated belonging and trust in a fictional STEM organization via higher perceptions of allyship. Theoretical implications for research, practical implications for organizations, and future research avenues to explore are discussed

Background: The implementation of female networks is a recognized organizational tool to support similar social identities receiving marginalization, such as women. Still, gender inequalities seem to persist, and the effectiveness of these networks is questioned. It has been proved that when men are engaged in gender inclusion programs, the organization sees drastic improvements in reducing gender inequality than if men are not involved. In recent years, the concept of Allyship has been presented as a way to include men in gender equality work. Allyship seems to be an increasingly appreciated tool to support women and, at the same time, help organizations adapt their work culture and inclusion values.  Research problem: Despite the prevalent perception that allyship can be a valuable way for organizations to diminish gender inequality, most organizations continue to focus their efforts, initiative, and measures only on women. There is still a research gap regarding the paradox of what women consider to be an excellent ally, whom they believe can become an ally, and how they prefer that an ally should behave and act. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how members of female networks perceive and leverage male allies to combat gender inequality in male-dominated organizations. By putting this phenomenon in the limelight, we aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of how members of female networks experience male allies and the concept of allyship in its entirety and thereby offer essential insights to scholars and practitioners. Method: Our research methods were based on qualitative, explorative research and followed multiple case study. Our empirical data was conducted from 17 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with participants from eight different male-dominated organizations. The empirical data was further analyzed using a grounded theory for the analysis process. Conclusion: As a result of the findings, a framework was developed explaining how members of female networks perceive potential allies as 1) suitable members of the majority group, 2) top management, and 3) influential members from the same minority group. Additionally, it reveals how members of female networks would appreciate leveraging allies through autonomy-oriented help in 1) cheerleading, 2) continuous support, and 3) immediate confrontation.

The aim of this dissertation project is to describe the ways people experience parenting a deaf child who uses a cochlear implant. Within a framework of social science studies of disability this is done by combining approaches using ethnographic and netnographic methods of participant observation with an interview study. Interpretations are based on the first-person perspective of 19 parents against the background of their related networks of social encounters of everyday life. The netnographic study is presented in composite conversations building on exchanges in 10 social media groups, which investigates the parents’ meaning-making in interaction with other parents with similar living conditions. Ideas about language, technology, deafness, disability, and activism are explored. Lived parenting refers to the analysis of accounts of orientation and what 'gets done' in respect to these ideas in situations where people utilize the senses differently. In the results, dilemmas surrounding language, communication and cochlear implantation are identified and explored. The dilemmas extend from if and when to implant, to decisions about communication modes, intervention approaches, and schools. An important finding concerns the parents’ orientations within the dilemmas, where most parents come up against antagonistic conflicts. There are also examples found of a development process in parenting based on lived, in-depth experiences of disability and uncertainty which enables parents to transcend the conflictive atmosphere. This process is analyzed in terms of a social literacy of dis/ability.